When reading a book, fiction or non-fiction, readers can often lack the proper context in which to fully grasp the nuances of the text. This is especially true when the book was written long ago, or was written for an audience with different social and cultural experiences. Writers will often unconsciously assume that audiences are familiar with the same experiences and knowledge as themselves. Even though the text itself may not explicitly reference customs, mores, or events, they are often implicitly referred.
Contemporaneous writings and descriptive non-fiction such as historical and cultural commentaries can fill in the gaps of knowledge, but require the reader to spend time researching and discovering what content is relevant. If the reader has limited knowledge or experience with the social and cultural background, the reader may not even know what subjects are relevant to understanding the text, limiting the usefulness of the research.
Doing external research while reading through a text can inhibit a seamless reading experience as the reader switches between different books and resources. Searching for relevant information can also take a long time, possibly inducing the reader to cease researching, which in turn decreases the understanding the reader has of the text.
The above-described deficiencies of contextualizing written texts are merely intended to provide an overview of some problems of current technology, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art, and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments described herein, may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.